


Cat Nike

by odiko_ptino



Series: Featured Character: Ares [5]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 21:18:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17030211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odiko_ptino/pseuds/odiko_ptino
Summary: Cats aren't very well-represented in Greek mythology, but not for Nike's lack of trying.





	Cat Nike

The idea is sound; Nike is confident of that much.  It’s just tragically unfortunate timing.

She’d had the idea of being more approachable.  A winged warrior woman wielding a torch is an impressive main form, and she doesn’t have any complaints on that front.  But, she noticed over the years that she was appealed to only by a fairly specific set of people – the warriors and the athletes.

Which, of course, is a perfectly respectable group to specialize.  But it would be nice to be able to appeal to everyone.  

Everyone in the world thinks of Zeus when it rains.  Everyone thinks of Hera when there’s a marriage.  They think of Apollo whenever a song is sung; they think of Artemis when a woman gives birth.  Demeter touches all lives with her grains; Persephone touches all lives who see her springtime flowers… and anyone who dies, which is every mortal.  Hermes, you can’t avoid him even if you try.  But for Nike, only the soldiers and athletes seem to want to be victorious.

Nike doesn’t know why – she wants to help anyone who seeks victory!  A victorious harvest – Nike and Demeter, working in tandem!  A victorious parcel delivery, thanks to a team-up with Nike and Hermes!  A victorious – er – whatever it is Dionysus does?  A victorious….. orgy… well, maybe some things don’t need her help.

She teams up with Athena all the time, of course; and Ares.  But she wants people to pray to her with their small victories as well. Perhaps her winged, garland-bearing form is too intimidating.

She gets the idea of choosing a more… low-key form.  Something accessible; something that everyone sees all the time.  Most animals are already spoken for, though, which makes it difficult: the traditional “noble” creatures like the lion, the bull, the eagle… but, she’s looking for a “humble” creature.  

(“You could try the cockroach,” her idiot brother Kratos suggests.  “Truly a testament to the victory of survival!”  

“Not  _that_  humble,” she informs him loftily.  The imbecile.)

Even the humble creatures are spoken for.  The deer belong to Artemis.  The rooster goes to Helios.  The goose and cow go to Hera.  Virtually every bird seems to belong to Apollo.  Turtles go to Hermes, dogs go to Ares…

Oh!  But no one’s claimed the cat!

And how perfect!  It’s a humble creature to be sure, but unique among animals in that it chose, on its own, to almost self-domesticate.  This resulted in all the survival benefits of a domesticated species, while still maintaining independence and self-reliance. Truly a victorious creature.

It’s decided!  The Spirit of the Cat will represent her. Anytime a mortal sees a cat, they will think – victory, for even the small things!  And they’ll be inspired!  She’ll cheer them on!

….Or, well, that was the idea, anyway.  

Unfortunately, she had this big idea just before Constantine stirred things up – and the people slowly but surely began to turn from the gods.  Official worship was dead; thus, official means of promoting the Victory Cat were no longer available – though, of course, that was becoming a distant priority at that point.  By the time the Dark Ages kicked in, not even the soldiers and athletes prayed to Nike for victory – and her hopes of being a winged cat who inspires the masses were all but crushed.  To add personal insult to the matter, most Europeans of this time period chose to persecute cats as the creatures of the Devil, in their new religion.

It was an all-around depressing time to be a Greek goddess of victory… or any other god.  

Things have picked up a little now, in years that will come to be known as the Renaissance – official worship is still out, but thanks mainly to Apollo and the Muses’ tireless efforts, the painters and sculptors and musicians and poets remember them again. The gods have begun to turn up in the collective consciousness after a long hiatus, and it’s quite exciting and wonderful!  Nike’s heard her name spoken aloud several times this year alone!

AND PERHAPS SHE CAN MAKE THE CAT THING CATCH ON.

She prowls around the artists’ studios in her feline form as often as she is able, and stretches along their art supplies.  She slinks into the musicians’ halls as visibly as she can.  She even lowers herself into allowing pets and treats from the distracted poets as they pen their verses.

Nothing.  Not one single association of cats with Nike.  A few centuries of neglect have made these humans even less likely to take the hint than they were before.

“Oh, darn it all!” she exclaims on day, flinging herself on Ares’ couch in a huff.

He looks over in mild curiosity, nonplussed by her bad language.  “Darn what?”

Ares is wearing a chest plate over a doublet and breeches.  Nike doesn’t much care for the aesthetic of the garb; but it’s what the soldiers of this day and place are wearing, and Ares is about to be metaphysically on the job.  He’s been quite busy with the Italian Wars, though no soldier there prays to him by name. He still likes to oversee, though.

Nike is one of the few Olympians who was fond of him from the beginning.  She’s associated formally with Athena and Zeus, but she feels more of Ares in her cries of encouragement, her cheers to bring her people to triumph. Athena has specific goals at the end of her wars; Nike and Ares are about a  _feeling_.

Nike doesn’t remember her father, the Titan Pallas.  He faded out eons ago, like so many of his generation.  She sometimes likes to pretend that Ares is her father.  He gives off very strong Dad vibes, in her opinion.

She sighs, noisy and exasperated.  “I have chosen the cat as my sacred animal and NO ONE is taking it seriously, or even paying attention to all my Signs.”

“The cat?  That’s a good choice.  But of course, they don’t get along with dogs well,” he gives her half a quirk of his lips as he adjusts his chestplate.  Dogs are his sacred animal, of course.  

“If my association with cats would ever catch on, they’d definitely start getting along better!” Nike declares, then sighs again.  “… it’s a big ‘if,’ though.  I’ve been trying since around Augustine.  It’s hard to get a thing to gain momentum by myself.”

“Yeah.  I hear that.  It’s pretty much impossible to start a trend on your own… I’ve been referring to myself as the god of courage since… well, almost since the beginning.  But it’s always war.  Even in Rome, after things were better, it was still ‘Mars, God of War.’ And, uh, agriculture somehow. Never courage, though, couldn’t make it catch on.”

He’s matter-of-fact about it, even distracted: not satisfied with the weight of his sword.  The god of courage.  Now that he mentions it, she’s sure she can remember it a few times – not that he had too many occasions to announce his godhood to an assembly of other gods who had known him for millennia.  But yes; she remembers a few casual references, that went unnoticed by the audience.  

Ares startles, sword in hand, as Nike abruptly leaps up, planting her feet on Ares’ couch and her fist in the air.

“WE CAN’T GIVE UP, ARES!” she says in her Nikiest voice – the voice that inspires, the voice that drives you forward.  “We’ll make it happen!  The circumstances are against us, but we can persevere!  After all, courage and victory go hand in hand!  Just like cats and dogs!”

He’s giving her an amused look.  “Uh…”

“JUST LIKE CATS AND DOGS,” she repeats, louder, in a Nike voice.  “We are eternal, Ares, we can be patient!  No matter if it takes another thousand years!  The world will someday come to understand that I am best represented by a winged cat, and you are the god of several things but primarily COURAGE! NIKE!!”  

She shouts her own name with a note of finality, that brooks no argument.  It’s not a prophecy, of course; and she has no cosmic authority to make the world see either courage nor cats.  But that’s not what she’s there for.  She’s there to inspire others to victory – soldiers and athletes; farmers and merchants, and even discouraged gods, so that they might make it come to pass themselves.

Ares is grinning, now, and when she throws out her hand to him he takes it.  “To flying cats, then.  I’ll tell everyone I know.”

“And I’ll do the same!” she vows, determined.  “I’ll keep a garland ready for both of us!"


End file.
